The Job of a Studio Design Director

I am the studio design director at Obsidian Entertainment.  This is, for lack of a better term, the “top” design position at the studio.  A few people have recently asked me what it means for me to “give feedback” or “advise” on a game that I am not working on.  Some people may also wonder what else the job entails.  It comes down to five things:

The regular meetings are just that.  They are informal, unstructured, and usually 15-60 minutes long, depending on how much there is to talk (or rant) about.  If I think it could be helpful, I offer advice, otherwise I listen and give opinions.  Sometimes these meetings help me recognize when someone is having a problem that someone else at the company can help with.  I then try to put those people in contact with each other to move things forward.

I don’t play every team’s games all the time.  I play them when they have important milestone builds or when someone on the team specifically wants my feedback on some new feature or piece of content.  I play the build, I write up notes, and I give feedback based on those notes.  I try to orient my critical feedback around what sort of experience the team has said they are going for and how the experience actually plays out.  I also often try to put myself in the position of an ordinary person playing the game for the first time.  There are a lot of things a team gets used to and doesn’t realize how aggravating it is to experience fresh.  When it comes to either an existing IP or a new IP, I give feedback on how that IP is being used or developed and how I think the audience will receive it.

I can’t review all of the design documentation at the company, but when my feedback is requested or when I think it’s an area where I could be of help, I do review documentation and provide comments and comprehensive feedback.  It’s much easier to course correct in the documentation phase than when you’re knee-deep in implementation.

Obsidian has a number of internal documents detailing our expectations of designers at each seniority level and also our expectations of what each sub-discipline should be focused on doing.  We also have design tests that go out to applicants.  These tests are separated by sub-discipline and (recently) by seniority.  Finally, we have company-wide and IP-specific writing standards documents.  I did not write all of these documents in the first place, but I am responsible for updating them or asking/allowing someone else to update them based on the needs of projects and the company.

I also don’t sit in on every design interview, but depending on my schedule and the type of position being interviewed, I will either do some of the up-front reviews of applications/tests or I will sit in on interviews and provide my feedback to the people making the hiring decision.

That accounts for about 90% of my day to day responsibilities at the studio design director.  The remaining 10% is spent on drop-in design talks and handling all of the quarterly reviews for the company’s many designers.

I hope that explains it somewhat.  Thanks for reading.